Earth Defense Force Preview

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We need to make 8 gallons of bug juice by snack hour.

By IGN Staff

In the year 2017, the Ravagers come to Earth. The government named them so, even before knowing whether they were hostile or not according to the radio chatter on the opening stage. They come in large ships and beam down large robot walkers, giant ants, and enormous arachnids. This is a job that only the elite Earth Defense Force can handle. Corny? Perhaps. But if you're looking for a deep story and strategic gameplay, you'll want to set your sights elsewhere. Earth Defense Force 2017 is an unapologetic, classic arcade shooter where the only thing that outnumbers the gun selection is the number of enemies on screen at once.

Earth Defense Force 2017 may not be the deepest of gameplay experiences, but there is a ton here to keep fans occupied. To get all six achievements (yes, there are only 6 of them), you'll have to beat every level on every difficulty and unlock all of the weapons. The testers at D3 estimate this will take you about 75 hours. There isn't any online co-op to extend the life even further, but if you have a friend you can play through the entire game on the split screen with them. You can take it even farther with the included battle mode which allows you to square off against another player in a death match.

EDF 2017 has 53 missions with tasks ranging from simply clearing out a handful of ants to taking on the mother ship herself. Now there may be over 50 levels to tackle, but there isn't a whole lot to set one apart from another. Most missions take place in the same small city environment with a few others set in the countryside, on the coast, or underground. It's an interesting sight when you blow up the big space needle the first time, but it soon just becomes forgettable when you've hit it with a rocket in 10 straight levels only to find it back in pristine condition on the next mission.

But the Earth Defense Force games have never been about deep gameplay; they've been about unlocking bigger and badder weapons to unleash a hellfire. In this aspect, 2017 doesn't disappoint. There are over 150 weapons in the game with nearly every one of them unlockable in the missions. Each level can be played on any of five difficulties with more powerful and rarer weapons only available on the tougher modes.

You'll want to go back and get the better weapons, too. We started off with a simple assault rifle and have found a few cool weapons so far, but none of them can compare to the genocide gun that D3 showed us. It does 1 million points of damage. Most of the weapons are fairly similar with only firing rates and damage differentiating them, though there are a good number of unique weapons such as portable auto-turrets and flame throwers to add variety.

The graphics in EDF 2017 are hit or miss. The flying ships look very cool, but most of the texture work and design feels rather bland. With hundreds of enemies swarming the screen at once, it isn't surprising the slowdown comes fairly regularly. If you're looking for a beautiful and smooth game, this isn't the one for you. The sound is in line with the graphics, too. There are roughly 1500 lines of dialog recorded that your AI controlled squad mates (roughly 15-20 can join you at once) will belt out seemingly at random. Hearing one say that he is out of ammo and then belt out a death scream followed by another informing his team that he'd like to finish this up quickly to get home for dinner is an odd sequence of events. At an MSRP of $39.99 (USD), the budgetness of this title should be apparent from the start.

Thankfully, that budget feeling doesn't extend into the controls which work quite well. There are options for inverting both axes as well as a separate basic control setting that provides a more fixed camera for those that can't quite handle the dual analog sticks. You can also adjust your turn speed, which may become more important on the later missions as you become more challenged.

The number of on-screen bugs that simultaneously attack you is pretty impressive. This is quite possibly the only time I've seen more bugs in one place than my old NYC apartment. They even have a small amount of AI allowing them to swarm you, come in from the flanks, and attempt to get on your six. They won't beat you for any other reason than sheer numbers, but it's nice to see a game with hundreds of enemies that aren't just running in a straight line or standing in one place.

We've already invested nearly 4 hours into Earth Defense Force 2017 and we aren't even close to seeing all there is to see. In fact, the save menu tells us we're only just over 4% done. Hopefully we'll have the game finished by the end of the month when it hits shelves. Until then, check out our new HD movies and screenshots in the gallery.